Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Status Report: House Speaker John Boehner insists that tax rises for the wealthy can't be allowed to happen. Obama insists that it must. “As long as Republicans persist in claiming to believe that lower tax rates will reduce deficits, nothing in Washington will change. Given their ability to deny both climate change and evolution, denying simple budgetary arithmetic is trivially easy.”

Proportion: Killing innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and so on will get you promoted, but making love to a good looking woman is a violation of ethics? Let's all watch! Will the R's excuse King David for the 'crimes' they pinned on Bill?

Good Intentions: In a country that has no oil, no natural gas, and no coal, 100,000 well intentioned Japanese gathered to protest nuclear power.

Lets Make a Deal: If we raise taxes on the rich back to the marginal rate under Bill Clinton (remember those boom times?), add a measly 2% surcharge on the richest one-half of one percent of the richest, put a 0.5% fee on financial transactions, tax capital gains as income, stop invading countries at random, eliminate special tax preferences for oil and gas, price supports for big agriculture, tax breaks and research subsidies for Big Pharma, unnecessary weapons systems for military contractors, and indirect subsidies to the biggest banks on Wall Street, and end the Bush tax cuts on incomes between $250,000 and $1 million, we'd solve the “fiscal crisis”. And we would not have to raise taxes on the middle class, haven't cut Social Security, haven't cut Medicare, haven't cut Medicaid, haven't cut spending on education or infrastructure, and haven't had to throw the poor under the train.

Codetalker: Paul Ryan says he and Mitt lost because too many “urban voters” were allowed to vote voted. In 25 words or less, define 'urban' as used by Mr. Ryan.

Aide Mémorie: “The Democratic Party has received the support of the electorate only when the party, with absolute clarity, has been the champion of progressive and liberal policies and principles of government. The party has failed consistently when through political trading and chicanery it has fallen into the control of those interests, personal and financial, which think in terms of dollars instead of in terms of human values.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Pot/Kettle: Booby Jindal, the Republican governor promoting charter schools and the teaching of intelligent design in Louisiana, says the Republicans should “stop being the stupid party.” I agree.

Clarification: Official EU/ECB pronouncements about the fate of the euro, Greece, Spain, Portugal and so on are, by and large, simply not true. Their magic bag is officially empty, leaving only “debt forgiveness” or “more money” or “brute force” as possible next steps. Each carries serious consequences for many nations and many governments besides Greece.All lead to extensive pain and probable contagion. The Greeks will be forced out of the EU. Then comes Spain. And Italy. And..

Slow Learneres: Knowing it will kill us in the end, we managed to dump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere last year than ever before. Go team.

Trojans: A group of CEO's from America's biggest corporations are campaigning to "Fix the Debt." The intend to fix it on the backs of the poor and elderly, to the benefit of their boardrooms. "I'm from Wall Street, and I'm here to help..."

Twins:Like oil, coal is getting more expensive to produce. Like oil, the easiest to get coal went first. Now, like oil, we're well into the much harder to get, and, again like oil, it costs more to retrieve, more to process, more to transport. And just like oil, coal prices are rising and will rise more in the future. But price will be no object; we'll pay whatever it takes to burn the last scuttle of coal, while the global temperature soars.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.